Happy?

What made your experience with AppSumo ok today?

0 to 1 billion

What we accomplished with SumoMe in 2014 and why 2015 is the year of BOLD

It's the beginning of a new year. Before you know it, it'll be December 31st, 2015 and you'll wonder how the year went by so fast.

2014 felt similar to that. I'm still a bit shocked what we were able to do at AppSumo.

Today I want to share with you what we accomplished last year, what we learned, and how you can learn from us to be BOLD in 2015 and reach all your goals.

Last year, we built a tool called SumoMe to help you grow your website. Our goal at the beginning of 2014 was to have SumoMe reach 1 billion people before the end of the year.

Well, here's a graph that shows exactly what happened. We haven't shared this with anyone:

Honestly, it's pretty shocking seeing our year mapped out in a graph.

SumoMe reached 1 BILLION people in 2014. That's the population of China. That's the population of India. That's 1/3 of Anton's family in Russia.

It didn't always seem that it'd be this big in the beginning ...

To be honest, we worked for months without significant results. Growth was painfully slow.

Here's one big lesson I learned in 2014: Some of the hardest but most life-changing times in life are when you are working towards something but don't see the immediate progress.

It's easy to look back and say "It wasn't that bad!" In actuality, it was hard as HELL trying to grow SumoMe.

Here's a few things that helped us hit our goal and what you can do for yourself:

1. One clear goal. Our goal this year was just as insane as it was last year. But the more we had weekly and monthly targets, the more we stayed on track to the end. We would have never seen so much growth and success with SumoMe if we hadn't set one clear ambitious goal. Focus on reaching one goal (even if it's crazy) and you'll be surprised at what you can do.

The moment we hit our goal of 1 billion people!

2. Remove all distractions. Everything not helping us toward our goal was cut. If we thought about working on a new project or doing something new, we'd first ask ourselves "Does this help us reach our goal?" If it didn't, we wouldn't do it.

3. Have only the best people around you. Instagram was sold for $1 billion when they only had a team of 12. With our small team of amazing people, we don't waste time working with people that aren't great. If you want to do extraordinary things you can't have ordinary people around you.

4. Have fun. Remember this is your ONE life and you should be doing the things that matter to you and are fun. This doesn't mean that everything will be easy and you'll be laughing all the time but if you're working hard on something and not getting enjoyment from it, ask yourself if your goal is really right for you.

As crazy as the numbers are, the best part was seeing how SumoMe has affected REAL people.

Here's Tracy from Penny Pinchin' Mom explaining how SumoMe has changed her life and her website:

We crushed it last year. How many sites reach 1 billion people over a year? Hardly any.

Does that sound cocky? Probably.

But it's not always bad to be cocky. We worked our asses off and are super proud of what we did in 2014.

I want you to be proud of what you are doing this year.

I want 2015 to be your best year ever. I want 2015 to be your year of BOLD.